Kansas legislature passes weird new abortion law

Roe v. Wade still stands, for now, which means red states like Missouri and Kansas can't outlaw abortions within their borders. Instead, Republican legislators get together, worship fetuses, and dream up weird new laws that make it hard for women to exercise their constitutional right to make decisions about their bodies.

The latest example of this creepy phenomenon is a bill in Kansas called SB 98. It is a plain attempt to harass abortion providers by requiring them to disclose to women information (credentials, malpractice insurance, disciplinary record) that is not required of surgeons performing higher-risk procedures. The particularly absurd part of this bill is that it micromanages this process down to, quite literally, the letter: The information must be provided on "on white paper in a printed format in black ink with 12-point times new roman font," according to the language of the bill.

But there are other, more pernicious qualities to SB 98, as articulated in this letter written in opposition to the bill by Wichita doctor Alan Fearey:

Bret Gordon, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Kansas, said in a separate letter that the bill "seeks to interfere with womens' access to pregnancy termination" and that "none of the measures listed would facilitate improvement in delivering safe patient care."